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What Is Round Robin Betting

What Is Round Robin Betting?


A round-robin bet is a series of mini-parlays made from a list of wagers.


It allows bettors to bet on every possible combination of a potential parlay. Round robins are a strategic way to dive into a parlay.


How Does Round Robin Betting Work?


Round robins take a selection of at least three wagers and combine them into a set of smaller parlays. At its core, it functions like a round-robin tournament, where every team has an opportunity to play every other team in the tournament.


Except, the bets aren’t competing here. Instead, they get a chance to pair up for a parlay with every other game or team selected.


When you make a round-robin, it breaks up every selection you make into a unique wager that functions as a parlay. This can be in pairs or larger groups that alter the payout, but each parlay of a round-robin is paid for separately.


Round Robin Bet Example


Let’s say we have “A,” “B,” and “C” in a round-robin. “A” and “B” would match up once, “A” and “C” would match up once, and “B” and “C” would match up once as well.


For a round-robin, you need at least three picks, so let’s take these:

  1. New York Giants (+6)
  2. Jacksonville Jaguars (+8.5)
  3. Buffalo Bills (-4)

These three picks would be split into three parlays, each with an independent chance to win:

  1. Parlay 1: Giants (+6), Jaguars (+8.5)
  2. Parlay 2: Jaguars (+8.5), Bills (-4)
  3. Parlay 3: Giants (+6), Bills (-4)

There is a wager for each of those parlays, but not every one of those parlays has to win for you to make money.


Round Robin Parlay Chart


ParlayBetTo Win
Giants, Jaguars$10$26
Jaguars, Bills$10$26
Giants, Bills$10$26


Is A Round Robin A Good Bet?


Round robins aren’t usually the best bets because they can get expensive quickly. Each parlay coming with a separate price tag means that adding teams to the round-robin and different parlay selections will add up.


The payouts for one parlay winning usually aren’t worth the price of the rest, even if you end up even.


Is Round Robin Betting Profitable? Round Robin Payout


How profitable a round-robin is, depends on the parlays you create. The payout comes from each separate parlay, not the whole, so there’s a chance to win a lot more than a normal parlay. But, there also is the possibility of losing each one and losing more money than on a straight parlay.


Creating round-robin parlays that are favorable and, at worse, leave you even are seen as the optimal way to play and potentially earn. Since each parlay created will have unique odds associated with it, it’s best to tinker with all of the possibilities to see what’s best for you.


Best Round Robin Betting Strategies


A round robin is best used strategically with underdogs, optimizing groupings and multipliers with better odds for a nice profit. Winning even a small percentage of the parlays can be a net gain this way.


Two-team parlays are also the simplest to win, so no need to get cute going for more in a round-robin. Any straight bets that you feel confident in should also be used as much as possible.


What Are Trixies And Patents In Round Robin Bets?


A Trixie is a round-robin option from the horse racing world, which gives you four bets. In a Trixie, the four bets are made of three two-team parlays and another three-team parlay.


A patent is a Trixie plus three single bets added to it. So you get the same amount of two-team and three-team parlays plus three more wagers.


What Is A Yankee Round Robin Bet?


A Yankee is just another term for a bet of every round-robin combination as one in a four-team parlay. So it’s every two-team combination (6), three-team combination (4), and a four-team parlay for a total of 11 wagers.


Different Types of Round Robin Betting Combinations


There are other nicknames for common round-robin combinations:

  1. Lucky 15
  2. Canadian (5-team)
  3. Lucky 31
  4. Heinz (6-team)
  5. Lucky 63
  6. Super Heinz (7-team)
  7. Lucky 127

A lucky is like a Trixie and patent, where it adds single bets to the full parlay options. So, a Yankee becomes a Lucky 15 because the four single wagers total 15. A Canadian becomes a Lucky 31, and so on.


Best US Sports Sportsbooks/Betting Sites for Round Robin Betting


Almost anywhere that takes sports bets has round-robin parlays as an option.


To see the odds available depending on how you break up the round-robin parlay, I’d recommend FanDuel.


For the easiest way to see how you’re configuring the round-robin, DraftKings is better, in my opinion.


It’s all about personal preference, but major US sportsbooks all have the option.


How To Bet On Round Robin (For NBA, NFL, and MLB)


When you pick betting options for games like NBA, NFL, and MLB, the sportsbook will give you the option to make a parlay or series of parlays from them. They’re displayed differently everywhere but function the same.


Each time you add a game or team to the round-robin, the number of parlay combinations increases. With three teams, it’s only three options, but with 11 teams, there are over 2,000 combinations available.